Merchant Shipping Act 1906

35 Recovery of expenses from owner

(1) If any of the expenses attendant on the illness, hurt, or injury of a seaman, which are to be paid under the Merchant Shipping Acts by the master or owner, are paid by any authority on behalf of the Crown, or if any other expenses in respect of the illness, hurt, or injury of any seaman whose wages are not accounted for under the Merchant Shipping Acts to that authority, are so paid, those expenses shall be repaid to the authority by the master or owner of the ship.

(2) If the expenses are not so repaid, the amount thereof shall with costs be a charge upon the ship, and be recoverable from the master or from the owner of the ship for the time being, or where the ship has been lost from the person who was the owner of the ship at the time of the loss, or, where the ship has been transferred to some person not being a British subject, either from the owner for the time being or from the person who was the owner of the ship at the time of the transfer, as a debt to the Crown, either by ordinary process of law or in the court and in the manner in which wages may be recovered by seamen.

(3) In any proceeding for such recovery, a certificate of the facts, signed by the said authority, together with such vouchers (if any) as the case requires, shall be sufficient proof that the said expenses were duly paid by that authority.